http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article116200.ece;jsessionid=CCBF77C0179D8F36C12D13606194BD16?comment=submitted&postingId=117370
Hiring a maid getting costlier
By WALAA HAWARI | ARAB NEWS
Published: Aug 27, 2010 23:47 Updated: Aug 27, 2010 23:47
Labor recruiters charging exorbitant amounts for providing domestic help
RIYADH: Despite rules set by the National Recruitment Committee, labor recruiters are still charging more than they should for domestic helpers.
The prices for maids are set by the committee based on nationality: SR6,000 for Indonesians and SR5,500 for Sri Lankans. Indonesians and Sri Lankans make up 80 to 90 percent of legal domestic helpers and the different prices reflect differing wage requirements set by the governments of those countries.
These new, lower prices were set by the National Recruitment Committee to take effect next month after complaints were made that prices were too high: SR7,500 for Indonesians and SR8,500 for Sri Lankans.
These costs are what the recruiters charge to provide a legal domestic servant, but they do not always include additional fees such as the administrative costs of acquiring the work visa.
But even as the new set prices are soon to take effect, the cost of hiring a domestic helper is higher than even the current set prices: as much as SR8,200 for an Indonesian and SR9,000 for a Sri Lankan.
In additions to these costs and the worker's salary, employers of domestic help also provide a round-trip plane ticket every two years for home visits and cover the final-exit travel expenses at the end of the work contract.
According to National Recruitment Committee Director Saad Al-Badah, recruiting offices that do not abide by the new set prices will be subjected to losing their licenses to recruit labor.
However, these regulations mean nothing to the booming market for re-recruitment by labor brokers who acquire foreign maids locally who have been let go by their first employers and released to work elsewhere.
The peak season for re-recruiters is during Ramadan, when demand for temporary domestic help spikes as families become swamped with hungry visiting relatives and friends.
Al-Badah points out that re-recruiters are not legitimate businesses and therefore do not fall under his committee's jurisdiction.
"Some offices who rely on help that has been released by their sponsors to work elsewhere are not authorized by the Ministry of Labor and are not our responsibility," said Al-Badah.
Ironically, the cost of hiring a foreign domestic servant locally is about the same as the cost of bringing in a worker from thousands of kilometers away.
Riyadh resident Najla said she was asking SR16,000 to release her driver and maid locally because after waiting four months for the couple to arrive she discovered the driver wasn't familiar with the city and didn't know the streets. When she complained to the local recruiter that she had specifically requested a driver who knew his way around Riyadh, the recruiter said he would take the couple back but would only reimburse her SR10,000.
"I was not happy with this answer so I called the office myself claiming that I was looking for a couple, and to my surprise they told me they do have a couple for the price of SR21,000," she said.
Some sponsors have also created an illegal side business of renting out domestic helpers under their sponsorship, earning up to SR3,500 during the month of Ramadan.
In 2004 members of the Shoura Council petitioned to lower the cost of work visas and to establish a process by which families could legally hire temporary domestic helpers. Al-Badah said both proposals have languished since.
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